November 1998

Dwight Garner highlights the most
interesting new books to be published in November 1998.

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November 7, 1998 1:00AM (UTC)

|Fall is the book industry's busiest, craziest season -- the time when
publishers come muscling in, sharp elbows at the ready, with their biggest,
most ambitious titles. Thousands of books are released almost
simultaneously; most of them will die quickly without the oxygen that
reviews, press attention and word-of-mouth buzz provide.

Each fall (and spring) for the past three years, as Salon's senior editor
in charge of book reviews, I've helped the magazine plan our book coverage
by plowing through a high heap of publishers' catalogs to compile a list of
some of the most interesting forthcoming titles -- a picky, whimsical,
wildly subjective list that I forward to the rest of Salon's editorial
staff. This year we thought: Why not share this raw data with our readers?
What better way to provide a quick, opinionated preview of some of this
season's best books?

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Here are the November books that captured our fancies. Before you dig in,
keep in mind that publication dates are notoriously shifty -- a book that's
promised in September often doesn't arrive until December, or sometimes
until the following March. Titles, too, often change in the months prior to
publication.